Gathering Dust
by Adelina Le Morte March
Summary: Arthur feels he's gotten over Morgana's betrayal, until one day he goes into her old chambers and sees dust gathering on her dresses. One-shot. Extremely slight implied possible ArMor pairing; the rest is pretty much canon.


**A/N: This one-shot could probably take place in either season 4 or 5, as it fits with the canon of the show more or less from any point after Arthur is crowned king of Camelot. Some loosely implied Arthur/Morgana and obviously implied Arthur/Gwen.**

-_Gathering Dust_-

Betrayal was something a person never really got over. Except where forgiveness was involved. If there were no means to make an ends to it, then betrayal lived on and grew.

Like an infected, festering, oozing canker.

Where Arthur and Morgana were concerned, it was _Morgana _who did all the festering, the brooding and stewing. It was _she_, now a high priestess, who was the steaming, bubbling pot always about to boil over into madness, striking blindly, at slights both real and imagined on Arthur's part.

As for Arthur himself, Morgana was a source of grief. But the pain that so chafed at her, chalking itself up into ever-growing resentment, was more like a passing sickness to her half-brother. He thought, mournfully, from time to time, of how good and kind and just she had once been. Once or twice, he was angry -truly _angry_- with her. However badly she had been hurt by their father, or by some failing of his own, what right did it give her to assume _he_ was a monster? It was _her_ who behaved like the monster she accused him of being! He knew what she'd done to his subjects -the subjects that would have been hers, had he not succeeded in taking back the throne from her- having them killed or letting them die to make a point to the knights, or to any others who disagreed with her. Yet, for all his claims at righteous rage, his hatred was manifested largely in avoidance. He had no desire to seek her out and kill her. If he even _could_. Arthur was no fool; he knew how powerful she had become. So, to him, thoughts of her passed through him like indigestion, a moment of queasiness, memories that tugged at his sleeve better brushed off and forgotten whenever they could be.

They had been friends once, even if they hadn't known they were brother and sister. There was a time, even, when he'd thought, when Morgana wasn't bickering with him in her ever-teasing way and he wasn't being obnoxious, before he fell in love with Guinevere... If they'd never drifted apart, and Uther never revealed the truth, to anyone at all, so that Morgana had never been able to find out, and Morgause had never come into the picture... Would they have...? Would Morgana have become queen after all but by very _different _means? Surely, before it came to that point, Uther would have felt compelled to say _something_. Something to prevent..._that_... Even if it wasn't the truth.

King Arthur shuddered, letting the thought go no further. It sickened him.

He was walking down a corridor, unaccompanied even by his manservant, for once, and though he willed himself not to, he stopped at a half-opened door, left ajar, just the way his half-sister had left it.

He'd never had it shut up, nor had he had it attended to, or reoccupied, after Morgana's plunge into darkness, into her hatred of him and Camelot. The servants knew better than to go in, even to clean, and nobody else had any business there. Arthur himself hadn't set foot in it for_ ages_.

_Morgana... _Arthur stared numbly at the sunlight pouring out from inside the room and onto the corridor floor. _Once these were _your _chambers... _

He let himself in.

_God_! He could almost see her...after all this time...really _see_ her...standing there in the middle of the room, all decked-out in silk dresses, brushing her long black hair by the window...

It was the _old _Morgana -Morgana his _friend_, known to him his whole life, not Morgana the high priestess or Morgana the witch- standing right there, in a puddle of white light, turning to smile at him, about to ask, no doubt, what business had brought him there.

Perhaps she would even joke about what a pleasant surprise his company was, the way she used to...

There she stood, rustling silk caressed the top of her feet as she walked towards him, still the queerest mix of an ethereal yet raven-dark figure living in the world somewhere between these chambers in reality and the chambers he still saw in his mind's eye.

Morgana smiled at him. It was a sweet, playful smile, not a cruel one filled with malicious intent. And there was no hint that she was being truly condescending or heartless when she spoke, saying, "Arthur, dear brother, why have you kept away so long? Why haven't you come to see me before now?"

_Because you weren't really here... You still _aren't_ really here... You don't exist anymore, just a hollow shell of you is now a high priestess. We may as well be strangers... This isn't real... This isn't _real_... _

"Real or imagined," Morgana said, "does it matter?"

Yes, it mattered. Of course it did. Their past, their friendship, was lost. He had long accepted that, painful though it was, and moved on with his life. He still had Merlin, after all, and Gwen...

Clenching his jaw, Arthur shut his eyes tightly and willed the ghost of the sister that might have been -almost _was_- away, out of the chambers of his childhood friend.

Opening his eyes again, he saw she was gone and the chamber was in disrepair. Dust collected on the wardrobe. Not really sure _why_, he went over to it and flung the doors open, half-expecting to hear Morgana's shrill cry of protest at his 'messing up her things'.

There, all hung up, were Morgana's dresses. The ones she'd left behind, never caring to return for. She wore black now, all the time, her colours and jewels a thing of the past.

Arthur would have been all right, would have kept on being strong, except that he noticed the dresses all had dust gathered on the shoulders.

It was as if she had _died_.

She might as well have, anyway, since she was never coming back.

A lump formed in the young king's throat. Tears threatened to come. A new, unexpected, maybe even uncharacteristic, thought kept them at bay as he swallowed and closed the wardrobe again.

His and Morgana's friendship was not unlike those dresses. Flimsy and superficial from the start, it had been long abandoned and was needlessly gathering dust.

Ashy, filmy pale gray dust that needed only to be brushed away.

There was no point in letting it rot, till the rats and the moths came and made an end to it.

He would have Merlin in here to clean up this room, remove all the dresses and trinkets, put it back into use. For guests, perhaps. The bed should be aired and remade as well. He would order the fireplace, and the cold bitter ashes left of the last fire Morgana had ever lit in there, which Gwen had never had a chance to clear away, swept and tended to.

Dusty ghosts and magic alike could have no place in Camelot.

He _would_, Arthur assured himself. He would indeed get this room cleared of its hauntings.

He would...

Arthur swallowed the lump in his throat as it shrunk to a more manageable size and closed the doors of the wardrobe.

He would...

Looking back over his shoulder as he left Morgana's chambers, he nodded to himself.

He would.

This would all be cleared away.

_Tomorrow_.


End file.
